


We Always Walked A Very Thin Line

by thewolvescalledmehome



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Album: folklore (Taylor Swift), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26940598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewolvescalledmehome/pseuds/thewolvescalledmehome
Summary: Sansa and Jon meet at the park as children and various life events keep bringing them back together. Inspired by songs from the Folklore (Taylor Swift Album)The first three chapters are vignettes and have time skips between them. The last three chapters are all the same time.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 23
Kudos: 105





	1. Seven

_I’ve been meaning to tell you,_

_I think your house is haunted,_

_Your dad is always mad and that must be why,_

_And I think you should come live with me,_

_And we can be pirates,_

_And you won’t have to cry,_

_Or hide in the closet_

From her spot at the top of the slide, Sansa could see the boy standing in the shadows at the edge of the park. He was under the trees, where the sandbox ended. Only he wasn’t playing in the sand—he was just standing there.

“Robb!” she called. He was supposed to be rescuing her from the tower, but the older boys were playing basketball over by the parking lot. Robb liked to think he should be playing with them instead of with her and Arya, even though he was only ten and the boys by the parking lot were in middle school.

Arya joined her first, crawling up the slide the way you weren’t supposed to.

“I called Robb.” Because Robb was older, and because he was a boy. She thought he might know who the shadowed boy was.

“Yeah, but I beat him. Pirates win,” Arya declared.

“We’re not playing anymore,” Sansa huffed, turning to look for her brother.

“Why not?”

“Robb! Come up here!”

He finally turned away from the older boys and climbed the jungle gym the way you were supposed to.

“What?”

“Do you know that boy?” Sansa asked. Her mother taught her it was rude to point, but she didn’t know another way to show who she was asking about. He must have seen her because he suddenly stepped away from the sandbox, closer to the trees. Sansa dropped her hand guiltily.

“That’s Jon. He’s in my grade.”

“Do you think he wants to play?” Arya asked, because Arya was always asking if people wanted to play. She asked the middle schoolers all the time, which annoyed Sansa. “He can be a pirate with me.”

Robb shrugged. He didn’t say anything else about Jon, so Arya slid back down the slide—the proper way—and ran towards the trees.

“Is he your friend?” Sansa whispered.

“He sits alone at lunch. And he stays inside for recess in the winter.”

Sansa took that to mean _no._ She also took that to mean that Jon didn’t have many friends, if he sat alone at lunch. She there were a couple girls in her grade who did.

Arya came back from the shadows then, the boy—Jon—behind her. For once, Arya climbed to the top of the slide using the steps and ladder instead of going up it. Jon followed her.

“He said he’d play with us. He’s a pirate too. Sansa’s the princess and Robb’s the knight.”

“Knights and pirates aren’t from the same time,” Sansa said.

“So?”

Jon looked at her, and even though he was in the sun now, she thought he still looked like a shadow.

“Wait, that’s not fair,” Robb started, when Jon and Arya started to climb down. “Only one of you should be able to get to Sansa. The other should guard her, so it’s fair.”

“Whose team is Jon on then?”

“He has to guard her from whoever comes up first.”

“So, he’s on my team,” Sansa reasoned.

“No, you’re not _on_ a team. You’re the princess.” Sansa decided not to argue and, with everyone agreed, Robb the knight and Arya the pirate climbed down.

“I’m Sansa Stark,” she stated, sticking her hand out the way she’d seen adults do.

“Jon Snow.”

His voice was quieter than she expected, and his hand was a little rough and dirty, like Arya’s usually were in the summer.

“We live over there,” Sansa pointed—she knew pointing was okay if she wasn’t pointing _at_ somebody. They lived on the other side of the park, which is why they spent most of every summer playing on the swings and jungle gym.

“I live in the house on the hill, over there.”

Jon pointed in the opposite direction.

Sansa knew the house on the hill he was talking about. It was the one she thought belonged in a fairy tale with its winding driveway and fairy gardens.

“I love that house! I always thought a princess lived there.”

“Nope. No princess.”

Sansa was going to ask if fairies actually lived in the garden like she suspected, but Arya’s screech startled her. She looked over to see her sister charging across the park.

* * *

The sky was turning orange when Sansa heard their mother’s voice calling them home for dinner.

“We have to go,” she told Jon. “It’s dinner time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Me too.”

“We’ll be back tomorrow. If you want to play.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Jon,” she waved before sliding down the slide and starting for home, Robb and Arya behind her.

* * *

The summer passed in bright, vibrant days spent at the park. Most days, Sansa was the princess trapped at the top of the slide and Jon was her guard. Some days, she was rescued from pirates by Robb and others she was captured from her castle by Arya.

As the early summer days stretched into midsummer, their games evolved. Arya, Robb, and Jon found sticks to serve as swords, which meant that Sansa spent more time waiting to be rescued.

It meant that she and Jon started to become friends while waiting for him to have to guard her.

He told her stories about the fairies that lived in the gardens at his house on the hill— _I knew it_ , she’d whispered when he told her. Arya had called her stupid when Sansa told her, but she shut up when she said Jon was the one who’d seen them.

Sansa told him about the character she’d made up as the princess she was playing, and about Arya’s pirate. When he asked, she made up characters for his guard.

They spun tales and stories and shared dreams, but Sansa, never asked the questions she wanted. The ones she’d been raised too polite to ask.

Why he wore long pants in the summer, why he seemed to only have a handful of t-shirts, and why his shoes looked too small for him.

Those were questions that Catelyn overheard her asking Robb, because she wanted to know. Robb didn’t have any answers but Catelyn made her promise not to ask him that. She hadn’t planned on it, but Catelyn’s response made her more curious. Especially when she started asking more questions about Jon.

“Where’d you meet him?”

“At the park. He’s in Robb’s grade.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“In the house on the hill with the fairy gardens.”

“That’s what he told you?”

“Yeah, and he _knows_ the fairies. Do you think I could go over there and meet them?” Sansa asked. She thought if she met them she could get proof and then Arya wouldn’t call her stupid anymore.

“I don’t think so. It’s probably best to just play at the park.”

“Okay.”

* * *

Two days later, Jon wasn’t at the park. He was normally waiting for them by the sandbox, digging little holes with his stick-sword. Today he wasn’t there. He’d never not been there.

“Should we go get him?” Arya asked.

“No. Mom said to only play in the park.”

“But I thought he just lives over on the hill.”

“We should wait for him,” Robb said. “Maybe he’s just late.”

Arya huffed but went and found her stick to go swing at the trees. Robb joined her. Sansa didn’t feel like going to the top of the slide without Jon to keep her company, so she went to the swings instead.

She thought maybe if she could get high enough, she could see Jon’s house. Even as she pumped her legs, going higher than she had before, only the top of the house was visible on the other side of the trees.

Sansa knew what Catelyn said, but she was pretty sure the house was just through the trees and up the hill. It was almost part of the park, the way her house was. She used to think of it as part of their yard until Robb told her anyone could play there.

“Maybe Arya’s right,” Sansa told Robb, once she’d left the swing and crossed the sandbox. “I can see his house from the swings.”

Arya was already past the first few trees. Sansa and Robb had to run to catch up.

Once they were through the trees, Robb took the lead, because he was the oldest, he said.

Sansa had been planning on going up to the door and asking if Jon could play, but Robb stopped them when they got to the start of the driveway that wound up the hill.

“You said this is where Jon lives?” Robb asked.

“Yeah. The house on the hill with the fairy gardens.” Sansa had been hoping to maybe see some on her way to the front door.

“This doesn’t say _Snow_ , though.”

Robb was pointing at the mailbox and the name along the side. Sansa knew that’s where your last name went. Their mailbox said _STARK_ on the side and then the numbers of their address down the post.

Robb was right. It didn’t say _SNOW._ She didn’t know the name that was faded on the side; it wasn’t one she’d heard and it wasn’t a word she knew how to read.

“Maybe it’s on the other side?” she asked, walking around the mailbox. That side was blank.

“Maybe it’s a few houses down,” Robb suggested. “We’ll just check to the end of this street and go back,” he decided.

Sansa wasn’t sure—this was definitely further than they were supposed to go—but she also wanted to find Jon.

She took Arya’s hand, because she’d already tried to dart across the street to check that mailbox even though she could barely read. Sansa let Robb lead now because she’d never been on this street alone and she didn’t know how much trouble they could get in.

The house on the hill Sansa had always thought belonged to a princess. It was a big house, and even had a tower. The houses around it weren’t the same. It was like a village from one of her stories, with the big castle and little houses around it for all the village people.

The other houses on the street were small, smaller than theirs, and several looked like a witch might live there, she thought.

It wasn’t until they got to the end of the street, on the other side from the fairy garden house, that Robb said it was Jon’s. Sansa read the mailbox herself because she couldn’t believe it.

If the other houses looked like witches’ huts, this one looked haunted. It was one she heard other kids avoided on Halloween.

“I don’t think we should go up there,” she whispered, stepping behind Robb. She expected Robb or Arya to call her scared, but they didn’t. They just stared at the house.

Then the yelling started. Both her siblings jumped and Sansa shrieked. She’d never heard yelling like that—so loud it echoed out to the street.

“Let’s go.” Robb tugged on her hand, and they took off down the street and back to the park.

“Should we tell someone?” Sansa asked once they were back to the sandbox.

“We weren’t supposed to leave the park,” Robb pointed out.

“But… What if Jon needs help?”

“We can’t tell Mom and Dad that we left the park,” he repeated.

Sansa turned to Arya, thinking she’d be on her side, but her sister’s eyes were wide still.

“Maybe we should go home.”

Thunder rumbled then, even though the sky was still mostly blue.

“Yeah,” Robb agreed.

* * *

The next day the storm continued, keeping the Stark children inside. Sansa wanted to ask if she could go just long enough to see if Jon was waiting for them, but Catelyn said she doubted anyone would be playing at the park in the storm.

After what she saw and heard yesterday, Sansa wasn’t sure that Jon’s parents would keep him inside during a storm, but she bit her tongue because she wasn’t Arya. And the three of them promised that they wouldn’t say where they’d gone yesterday.

* * *

Sansa was playing with her dolls and watching the storm by the back patio door. It was around the time they normally were called home, and Sansa could smell that dinner would be ready soon. Plus, Catelyn was talking to Ned on the phone, which Sansa knew meant he was on his way home.

A tapping on the glass of the door startled her enough she yelped. She had thought maybe Arya had snuck out to scare her, but that wasn’t who was staring at her with shadowed eyes.

It was Jon.

Sansa scrambled to open the door and pull him dripping out of the rain.

She knew he was the same age as Robb, but she thought he looked small, younger. He was pale, almost blue, and shivered like he’d been out in the rain for a while.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t play yesterday,” Jon said. She almost couldn’t hear him from the pounding of the rain and the roll of thunder.

Sansa had planned on asking why he lied about living in the princess house, and if he’d lied about the fairies too, but he sniffled and she knew she had to get her mom.

“Stay here.”

Sansa raced from the room and into the kitchen, where Catelyn was just hanging up, which meant Ned would be home any minute.

“Can Jon stay for dinner?” she asked, pulling herself onto one of the barstools so she could see what Catelyn was cooking.

“Not tonig— _Stay?_ ” Catelyn repeated. “What do you mean, _stay_?”

“He’s here.”

“Where?”

“In the den. He came to the patio door.”

She watched Catelyn snap off something on the oven before heading for the den. Sansa hopped down to follow.

“Oh my, you’re soaked,” Catelyn gasped. Sansa peeked around her to see Jon looking small, shy, and shadowed, like he had when they met at the park.

“Sorry,” Jon muttered.

The sound of the garage door going up then made Jon jump.

“Dad’s home,” Sansa supplied.

“Go tell Dad to set an extra spot for dinner. I’m going to have Robb bring down a change of clothes for you,” Catelyn said.

Sansa scurried off, eager to have her friend over for dinner.

At dinner, Jon was sat between Robb and her and dressed in Robb’s clothes. Sansa thought he still looked pale and small.

“Jon, Sansa said you live over in the house on the hill?” Ned asked after everyone was served. Sansa tried not to look panicked. _Did they know?_

“I live on that street. On the other end,” he admitted quietly.

“Ah.”

“Do your parents know you’re here? Should you call them?” Catelyn indicated to the phone on the wall.

“No. Mom works late.”

“How late?”

“She gets home after I’m asleep.”

Sansa knew there was an important reason to why her parents were asking these questions, but she thought it looked like Jon shrank with each answer. Like he became more shadow. She didn’t like this shadowy Jon. She preferred him in the bright sun standing guard on top of the slide. She’d come to think of that sunny one as _her_ Jon.

Thankfully, her parents stopped asking him questions after that and instead Ned asked how they all spent the day since they were stuck inside.

* * *

Jon spent the night because her parents didn’t want him walking home in the storm and in the dark. Ned called the number Jon gave him and left a message explaining that Jon would be sleeping over and to call if his mom needed anything.

They set him up in the den, pulling the couch out into a bed.

Sansa, Arya, and Robb all wanted to stay and sleep in the den with him—a slumber party—but once bed time rolled around, they were each shuffled off to their own rooms.

Sansa was snug in bed, surrounded by her stuffed animals and pillows that smelled like home. The singular sleepover she’d been on, she’d brought her own pillow and one animal to sleep with, to remind her of home. She realized Jon didn’t have any of that. He wasn’t even wearing his own pajamas—those were also borrowed from Robb.

The house was still and quiet when she opened her door, clutching her favorite stuffed wolf. Sansa tiptoed down the stairs and across the first floor to the den at the back of the house.

She thought again how small he looked, curled up like the rolly bugs Arya liked to dig up.

“Jon?” she whispered, in case he was asleep. He sat up quickly, his head snapping towards her. “I brought you this. She helps me sleep.” She held the wolf out to him and when he didn’t immediately take it, she felt stupid. She’d forgotten he was older, and a boy. Robb didn’t sleep with stuffed animals anymore. He hadn’t for years.

“Thank you,” he said, taking it before her hand dropped.

She started back for the door, to go to bed, because her parents had said she couldn’t sleep in the den, even in her sleeping bag.

“Wait.”

Sansa knew, even then, that she’d stay if Jon asked her to.

“I’m sorry. I lied about where I live.”

“I know. We went to your house yesterday but your name wasn’t on the right mailbox.”

“You came to find me?”

“You didn’t come to the park. But then we found your house and we heard yelling…” She stopped. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that part.

“My mom’s boyfriend,” Jon said quietly. “That’s why I couldn’t play.”

“Oh. Did you get in trouble?” Arya got grounded sometimes and wasn’t allowed to play. But Jon’s eyes did something that told her it wasn’t like when Arya got in trouble. “Are you okay?” she asked instead.

“Yeah. I hide in the closet when he gets mad.”

“Is he mad a lot?”

It was just light enough in the room that she could see his shrug. She could also just see how he held the stuffed wolf tightly to his chest.

“He’s okay when Mom’s around. It’s just when I’m home all the time in the summer.”

Sansa nodded like she knew what he was talking about, but really it sounded scary. And like his house actually was haunted. She thought she should tell her parents, but she wasn’t supposed to come back down, so she thought maybe not.

“But summer just started.”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay. Good night, Jon.”

“Night. Sansa.”

* * *

The summer slipped by quickly, June into July. Days at the park into nights full of fireflies. Sansa didn’t ask Jon again about his haunted house, mostly because he came to the park every day still. He didn’t miss another day like he had the day before the storm, so Sansa didn’t worry.

Every day, he waited for them by the sandbox, and even when Robb and Arya grew bored and tried to see who could swing higher or race across the park faster, Jon sat with her either on the swings or the top of the slide.

He told her more about the fairies and even though she knew he was lying—how could he know about fairies if he didn’t even live in the princess house—Sansa listened because she liked that he made up stories for her. No one else told her fairy tales—they all warned her she’d have to grow up eventually.


	2. Exile

**EXILE**

_I can see you standing, honey,_

_With his arms around your body,_

_Laughing but the joke’s not funny at all_

_I think I’ve seen this film before,_

_And I didn’t like the ending_

Jon couldn’t believe he let Sam drag him to this damned party. He didn’t even know how Sam heard about it, because Jon could count the number of people that he knew there on one hand, and he knew more people than Sam did.

Sam wouldn’t shut up about it though, about how he’d never been to one of the infamous lake parties that always started the summer. Jon pointed out that Sam hadn’t been to _any_ parties, lake, infamous, or otherwise, because Sam didn’t do well in crowds, but it was pointless and here they were.

Jon wondered how long they’d be there for—after all, this was the same crowd of people he actively avoided and who actively avoided him at school every day. Why would he go out of his way to spend more time with them?

At least there was beer here. There wasn’t at school.

And at least this was one of the lake parties. If this was a house party, Jon would’ve been back out the door already. Too many stupid people in that little of a space and he knew he’d also do something stupid.

No, out here by the lake at least he could separate himself. Watch the stupid from a distance.

“Did you see who’s here?” Sam asked, sitting beside him. Jon took a swallow of beer instead of answering sarcastically because he knew it would hurt Sam’s feelings.

“No,” he allowed, because Sam seemed excited about whoever it was he saw. Jon thought it might be Gilly, who Sam was trying to get up courage to talk to.

“Sansa,” Sam said, grinning broadly. “So, you have someone besides me to talk to.”

Jon sighed. He might live with the Starks, but he didn’t really hang out with them at school, or parties. If Arya had been old enough to come to these, maybe, but Robb and Sansa ran with a very different crowd. The one he actively avoided.

Plus, if Sansa was here, that meant her jackass of a boyfriend probably was too.

Jon couldn’t put why he didn’t like Ramsay into words—mostly because he couldn’t figure out _why_ he hated him so much. He thought it might have something to do with the fact that they had grown up on the same block, until Jon moved in with the Starks and until Ramsay’s mother married Roose Bolton and they moved to one of the big houses just outside of town.

Jon had said something to Robb about it when Ramsay first picked Sansa up for a date a few months ago, but Robb had shrugged him off. All Jon had been able to say is _I don’t like him._ He knew if he pushed the issue he’d come off as jealous.

He and Ramsay had started with the same type of moms who dated the same type of men and grew up on the same side of town. But then Ramsay’s mom married her way out and his mom’s last boyfriend took her permanently from him. Their lives had started at the same spot but around the same time went on vastly different trajectories.

“I thought you were friends,” Sam added when Jon didn’t say anything.

“When we were kids.”

“But she always makes sure to say hi to you.”

“That was once, and it was because she thought she was going to need a ride home.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that part.”

That’s because Jon hadn’t told him, and because that was the spring dance where she went home with Ramsay instead.

“Is Gilly here?” Jon asked, trying to get Sam talking about her instead. If they talked about Gilly instead of Sansa, then Jon wouldn’t keep looking out over the group of rising juniors for her.

* * *

Jon had moved away from most of the party after the beer ran out and everyone was considerably more stupid than he could handle. Robb and his friends had started chicken fighting the water, which Jon thought was one of the least annoying things happening at the party, but it was still stupid because the water wasn’t warm enough yet for swimming—it wouldn’t be until July and they all knew it.

He went around the bend and over the dead tree that had always served as the border for where parties ended. The houses on the side of the lake beyond the tree were all built closer to the water, which meant this area was always avoided at these parties.

Even after another beer and time apart, Jon’s mind kept wandering back to Sansa and Sam’s _I thought you were friends._

It was funny, as kids he and Sansa were better friends than he and Robb were at first. That first summer they spent playing at the park. But Sansa realized by the following summer that the other girls her age didn’t play in the park with boys and little kids. The other girls in her grade had started doing obsessing over boybands, made for TV movies about boys with floppy hair, and other girly things.

Since then, she was friendly at home and didn’t actually avoid him at school, but she never sought him out either, aside from the time she needed a ride.

It really didn’t bother Jon because at this point; he doubted they had much in common beyond the fact the lived in the same house and they both used to play in the same park.

On the other side of the tree, secluded from the rest of the party, Jon picked at the rocks buried in the sand in the dim light from the moon. He’d learned at the only other lake party he’d gone to, as a freshman, that this side of the lake had smooth stones perfect for skipping.

In truth, that’s how he spent most of the party freshman year too. Mostly because Robb had dragged him—this was before Robb got close with the sporty football crowd and he and Jon grew apart—but most of the people who ended up at the party were more Robb’s friends than his. Jon had mostly hung out beyond the tree and waited until Robb was ready to head home.

Now, Jon was waiting for Sam to admit this was a stupid idea and he could drive him home.

* * *

After what was probably close to an hour skipping rocks, Jon heard the sound of shoes scuffling over the tree. At first, he thought it was Sam, until he realized that one, it sounded like there was two sets of feet, and two, Sam would’ve been breathing heavily by now.

The voices carrying over the lake toward him also told him it wasn’t Sam. It was far, far worse.

Sansa and Ramsay.

Jon ducked back into a couple of trees at the edge of someone’s yard, hoping they couldn’t see him. He wished he couldn’t hear them—it sounded like they were arguing and Jon really didn’t want to know or care to know what they fought about.

But then he realized what Sansa was saying.

“I want to go home, Ramsay.”

“We just got here. I’ve been looking forward to this since finals, and now you want to go?”

“We’ve been here for hours! All my friends left and it’s just yours now.”

“You don’t like my friends? What, are they not good enough for you?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Jon thought her voice sounded small then—young. It sounded like she was crying.

It took everything he had not to step out and just deck Ramsay.

He’d always wanted to, but he could never find a good enough reason to get in trouble for it. Sansa crying seemed like a good enough excuse.

Ramsay started murmuring something quietly to her then, keeping Jon behind his tree. He couldn’t tell what he was saying or what Sansa’s reaction was though.

It seemed like he was comforting her and Jon was trying to shift his perception of Ramsay when his voice became audible again.

“Fine. Go home then.” His voice was cold, flat. Jon was halfway out from behind the tree to punch him—finally—when he saw that Ramsay was already back over the dead tree and had left Sansa alone.

He wasn’t sure whether to comfort her or to go back behind the tree but then his foot caught on an upraised root and he tripped.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Jon?” Sansa gasped. She was wiping at her face quickly, like she was trying to hide that she’d been crying.

“You okay?” he asked, stupidly.

“Fine,” she sniffed.

Jon was going to ask if Ramsay acted like that a lot, but he knew better.

“Did you come with Robb?”

“No, no. With Sam.”

“Oh, Sam’s here? I didn’t see him.” Her voice had lost that waver it’d had before, but Jon still thought she sounded younger than sixteen. “What were you doing back here?”

“Skipping rocks.”

He could just see her nodding in the dim light. Even though they weren’t really friends, there was something in the way Sansa nodded, in the way she never pressed, that he had always appreciated. Even that first summer at the park.

“Do… D’you need a ride home?”

“I, um. Yeah, I guess.” She glanced over her shoulder, back at the party.

“I have to drop Sam off first.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll go find him, then?” Jon shoved his hands into his pockets. It looked like she was shivering, but it wasn’t that cold, even this far away from the fire. “D’you want to come with, or…?”

“I’ll meet you by your truck.”

She took off then, not over the dead tree and back through the party, the way he had to go to fetch Sam, but through the trees and into the darkness.

When Jon found her five minutes later, Sam in tow, she was perched on his open tailgate.

Sam greeted Sansa quietly. For some reason, Sansa was the one of the few girls Sam didn’t struggle to talk to. Jon couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get up the courage to say _hi_ to Gilly without turning puce but he could hold a whole conversation with Sansa without blushing.

In his tiny cab that was definitely only meant for two and not three, even with the bench seat, Jon was glad for it. Sam and Sansa chatted quietly and neither forced him to comment on the party. It was fine until he dropped Sam off and it was just him and Sansa left. Suddenly the cab felt a hell of a lot smaller than it had with Sam between them.

Instead, the space was filled with what he overheard between her and Ramsay.

“Is that what he’s always like?” Jon asked when he couldn’t stand it anymore. They were nearly home and he had to say something.

“Who, Sam?”

“No.” The word came out shorter than he intended.

He knew she didn’t actually say _oh_ , but he’d still heard it.

“No.” It was as short as his had been.

“Are… you sure, because it seemed…” He couldn’t finish. He couldn’t explain how watching that made him feel.

“Yes, I’m sure, Jon,” she snapped.

Jon pulled in the driveway, parking behind Robb’s car. Jon hadn’t realized he’d left too.

“I’m just… I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“You’re not my brother, Jon. It’s not your job to protect me.” She slammed the door of his truck, her ponytail swinging as she ran into the house.

* * *

Jon hated his job. He’d taken it because it was one of the only jobs that was paying anything over minimum wage and they encouraged tips. It was the best money he’d make, but it also meant dealing with everyone he avoided on a daily basis.

That, and he had to wear the ugliest teal shirt as a uniform.

The fro-yo shop was where everyone hung out in the summer. Robb’s friends and the rest of the varsity teams everyone cared about. The cheerleaders in their stringy bikinis that were somehow always soaking their little tank tops and cover ups.

Sansa and her friends came by weekly, always discussing some committee they were on even though summer had just started.

Sometimes she came through with Ramsay and his crew, too, but that was less often. Ramsay and his boys weren’t really the ones to spend summer evenings at a family-friendly fro-yo shop. Jon suspected the only reason they ever came at all was because of Sansa. He didn’t know how he felt about that or what to think about it.

The only thing he thought he could do was keep an eye on them.

Sansa had barely talked to him since the lake party. Not that they spoke often anyway, but he could feel it was different.

Jon knew all the warning signs. He’d seen it too many times before, with every single man his mother had brought home.

That’s what had been bothering him the night of the lake party. The way Sansa spoke to Ramsay, how small and young she’d sounded. She’d sounded like his mother.

That realization, when it struck him weeks after the party, left him cold and haunted.

But the way she’d snapped _you’re not my brother_ and _it’s not your job_ kept him from saying anything to her.

Because Jon knew they weren’t friends. They had only really been friends for that first summer. Even so, a part of him had thought of himself as something like a brother. That’s how Arya and the boys, even Robb sometimes, introduced him—their brother—after he moved in with them. He had just assumed that’s how Sansa saw him too. A brother, or something close.

He hadn’t expected her words to hurt, but they had.

* * *

It was August, hot and sweltering the way only early August was, and the fro-yo shop was packed.

The football team and cheerleading squad sprawled across the booths in front of the windows, tubs and smoothies scattered across the tables. Robb was holding court, which Jon quickly learned to tolerate because if Robb came, it meant that the trash and dirty dishes always were left in a neat little group on each table. He made sure they didn’t leave it disgusting the way other groups of students did.

There were at least three families with young kids that were trying to solve overtired crankiness with more sugar, and the back tables were full of college kids home for the summer.

These were the worst shifts—weekend, from two to close. They were the busiest, the rowdiest, and left him the most sore and irritated.

There were two hours left in his shift and Jon honestly wasn’t sure if he could survive it. The kids were giving him a headache and his fingers were numb from scooping. At least this wasn’t a solo shift, like last weekend had been, and he knew the families would be heading out soon. Those two things were the only things keeping him halfway sane.

That little bit of sanity flew all the way out the window when Ramsay and his crew strolled in, Sansa with them.

Normally, when they came through, he’d pass them off to whoever else was working, but she was apparently in the back freezer getting replacement tubs.

Sansa was tucked against Ramsay’s chest, his arms wrapped around her waist. Ramsay and the rest were laughing, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Two banana cups and one strawberry.”

“Sansa doesn’t like banana or strawberry,” Jon said automatically. “She gets the lemon curd.”

That’s what she ordered every time she came in with one of the dance committees or student council.

“Sure, she does, don’t you?” His eyes dropped to Sansa. Hers were fixed on the display case.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

Jon opened his mouth again, ready to argue, but Sansa’s eyes cut to his. Briefly, sharply. Distinctly. Clearly telling him to drop it.

“Two banana and one strawberry,” he gritted, picking up the first cup.

The group moved to the tables that had been vacated by the families, scooting them together until it was large enough for all of them.

Jon hated it when they moved the tables.

He hated it when they came in.

He hated the way Sansa was acting. It was worse than the other times she’d come in with them.

Jon dropped the cups of fro-yo on the tables, resisting the urge— _need_ —to kick out the leg of Ramsay’s chair to drop him.

He couldn’t help but let his eyes linger on Sansa, trying to see if she was okay, but she didn’t look up at him. Instead, he walked back behind the counter, counting the minutes until his shift was over.

Jon tried not to watch them, but every time he wasn’t with a customer or scooping something, his eyes drifted back over to their tables.

He noticed how quiet Sansa was, how she barely touched the cup of banana fro-yo that was between her and Ramsay. He _knew_ she didn’t like banana.

It wasn’t until they were getting up to leave that Jon saw it. He watched it happen, trapped on his side of the counter.

One of the cheerleaders still over in the booths called Sansa’s name, waving. Sansa moved, taking a few steps towards the booths, the closest thing to a smile Jon had seen on her all night, when Ramsay reached out, wrapping his fingers around her arm, and yanked her back. She stumbled, and it was only because of how tight of a hold Ramsay had that she didn’t hit her head on the chair.

Jon would’ve vaulted over the case if he could have.

The only thing that stopped him from running over and killing Ramsay with his bare hands was Sansa’s eyes. They were locked on him, rendering him motionless.

Except the pleading eyes were suddenly steely grey, not ocean blue, and he wasn’t standing in the fro-yo shop, but cowering in the shadows of a closet.

Jon’s breath was strangled in his throat, frozen. He saw stars before he heard the chime of the bell above the door.

The image of his mother was gone, but so was Sansa. He heard the roar of the shiny SUV Ramsay drove just as Jon punched his way through the side door of the shop, chest heaving.

* * *

Jon drove for hours after his shift, the backroads that circled the town.

He was sorting through every image of Sansa and Ramsay he had from the past few months and held it against memories of his mother with the different men she brought home.

Each time, they were mirrors.

He’d seen it all before.

The cold numbness he’d felt before was replaced with hot shame and anger.

Gravel sprayed under his wheels as he threw his truck into a U-turn, speeding back into town.

His brakes screeched, sending him lurching, behind Robb’s SUV. He hurled the gear shift into park and yanked on the E brake.

The light was on in Sansa’s room.

Jon took the stairs in double steps, rushing down the hallway as fast as he could without waking the rest of the house.

He stopped short at her door. He’d never been in her room. Not even when they were kids.

Rapping one knuckle against the wood, he stood in the shadows, waiting.

Sansa opened the door a few seconds later, no longer in the dress she’d been in. Now she was in large t-shirt. He hoped she had shorts on underneath.

“Jon, I—What…?”

His gaze dropped to her arm, where Ramsay had grabbed her. Where there were still red finger marks that would clearly bruise.

“ _I knew it._ ”

It came out a growl and Sansa stepped back. Jon stepped forward, too close, into her room, and shut the door behind him.

“K-knew what?”

“That.” He motioned to the marks on her arm.

“T-that? That was an accident. I-I tripped, and—”

“That’s _bullshit_ and we both know it. I saw what happened, Sansa, I’ve been seeing it all summer. And I’ve seen it all before… And I don’t like how it ends.” His voice faulted at the end, losing the rage he’d felt when he saw her arm.

Sansa met his eyes then, and he could see the exact moment she realized what he meant.

“Oh, Jon, no. No, I’m not… Not your mom.”

“Really? ‘Cause I thought it at the lake party too. That’s always how it starts. Innocent bruises where he grabs too rough, accidentally? That’s next. Then it’s making sure you think you need them; you can’t live without them. It’s keeping you from your friends and family, stealing your safety net. It always follows the same pattern, Sansa. And this fits.”

The entire time Jon was speaking, he was focused on her bicep. He didn’t want to watch her face. He was terrified that it would somehow slip back into his mother’s, like it did at the shop.

He’d had this conversation before, too. It had never made a difference then.

“Her last boyfriend…”

The words choked him, scraping and scrambling in his throat, crawling back down to the dark pit where he kept them.

“He’s why she died. He might not have killed her with his hands, but it was all him. Why I moved in here.”

Thirteen-year-old Jon had thought maybe this one was okay. Maybe this one wasn’t as bad as the others, the ones where he hid in the closet. This one just drank and yelled. It wasn’t as bad. Until he yelled, he drank, and he drove with his mother in the car.

When he finally looked up, Sansa had tears sliding down her face.

“I-I didn’t know…”

He’d never told them. When Jon was taken in by the social worker, they asked if there was anyone they could call for him. He had no other relatives. He gave them the Stark landline number. The social workers were the ones who explained everything to Ned and Catelyn.

Jon had no idea how much they had told any of the five children, but given the look on Sansa’s face, it wasn’t much.

Her fingers drifted towards her other arm. The one with the red marks.

“Are… Are you…?”

“Sansa, please don’t ask if I’m sure. I’ve been watching the warning signs all summer.”

He expected an argument. He expected her to be angry or hurt.

He did not expect her to throw her arms around him and hug him.

Jon kept his arms loose on her back.

He did not expect how good it would feel to have her arms around him.


End file.
